Raising honey bees is simple enough, while deeply fascinating and entertaining. You provide the bees with fine accommodations, check on them occasionally to make sure they’re comfortable, and they will just do what bees do in making honey. However, after losing several hives the past few years we have been educated with also just how delicate their ecosystem is and how any number of things can destroy the balance of their existence. From intruders like mites, wax moths, and mice, to predators like bald-faced hornets and the “mysterious” colony collapse disorder, their lives are just as fragile as any other creature.

When we launched the new hive this year we were enthusiastically charged for what we hoped to be a productive season. Then, much to our surprise, something went awry as the bees seemed disorganized, erratic, and otherwise uninterested in making honey, but rather more interested in lounging inside their abode and feasting on their prized gold. Upon close inspection we realized that the queen bee, the most critical member of the team that makes it all work, had skipped town and left the workers to their frolicking sabbatical. With temperatures in the 90’s, we scrambled to harvest some of the honey (4 frames) before it was entirely consumed, and raced north to an apiarist farm to pick up a new queen before the entire hive shut itself down. It’s funny to think that what used to be a simple and orderly process, could switch to chaos in the blink of an eye. We hope wherever our former queen is, that she is resting comfortably and reminiscing just how easy life was, when it was just about making honey.

SECRET INGREDIENT:  Honey

TIP: Don’t let your hive go too long without a leader

Honey Recipe

• Honey bees
• Queen honey bee
• Sunshine
• No pesticides